Friday, September 12, 2008
New Home Theater System Promises "Better Than Blu" Movie Experience

Italy's SIM2, a maker of high-performance HD home-theater projectors partnered with U.S. firm Entertainment Experience, LLC to create software/hardware home theater solution that will deliver movie reproduction in a quality superior to the Blu-ray format.

The center incorporates advanced video processing calibrated to the DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative) color standards recently adopted by most Hollywood studios and distributors, as well as removeable-hard-disk data storage to accommodate multiple DCI-standard motion picture titles ready for immediate playback. The system's audio-video signal processing pulls the system together in the home theater environment, allowing owners to integrate current digital media including broadcast/cable HDTV, Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and even Xbox gaming and media-PC systems, into the advanced Digital Entertainment Solution.

Digital Entertainment, LLC predicts that the solution's movie content ultimately will encompass more than 4000 major titles from multiple studio and distribution partners, which will be delivered direct to consumers via hard drives that may be swapped into the Center's drive-bays. Each movie occupies approximately 40-50GB of storage space, due to data rates up to 3x that of conventional HD of the DCI Color format defined by Hollywood for professional cinemas.

The system also offers easy navigation and allows consumers to select titles on-screen using techniques already familiar to all from DVD-archiving and Media PC systems. The system also supports current video formats up to 1080p, and all major color and encoding standards including Mpeg2, Mpeg4, H.264, and VC1, and up-converting these to bit-rates as much as triple conventional HD rates, while incorporating full image and device security.

The Digital Entertainment Center's 18 video inputs encompass six 1080p/60-capable HDMI ports with HDCP, four SD/HD component, four each S- and composite-video, plus two HDMI outputs supporting resolutions up to 1920x1080p/60. Its 10-bit video digital signal processing provides for adaptive de-interlacing of both SD and HD sources, edge enhancement without ringing, and adaptive noise reduction, as well as color and grey level calibration.

"The time has come for top-tier home theater content to move beyond HDTV standards, to a format that can truly equal archival-quality film for visual content," says SIM2's VP of Marketing and Sales, Charlie Boornazian, "SIM2 already has the display technologies well in hand to allow us to begin migrating these technologies from the commercial digital-cinema world, while Entertainment Experience has the know-how and access to help make this a practical reality. Together, we are opening the next era of home-theater performance."

According to Jim Sullivan, ex-Kodak Digital Cinema exec and now President of Entertainment Experience, LLC, the collaboration with SIM2 offers the highest quality media solution on the market. "Now the most demanding video fans can enjoy all forms of entertainment media with the premium quality they have been looking for. We're confident that these discriminating, leading-edge consumers will agree with the many movie producers and creative directors who have seen the system: that it for the first time empower us to deliver a truly cinematic viewing experience in the home."

SIM2 and its partner demonstrated this new Digital Entertainment Solution home theater reference at the 2008 CEDIA Show in Denver, CO.

SIM2 and Entertainment Experience, LLC expect content to be available soon.